Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall forward Morgan Rokeh (20) skates toward the bench to celebrate scoring the go-ahead goal during the Tigers’ Big South Conference win over Windom at Red Baron Arena in Marshall on Tuesday.

MARSHALL — Despite trailing by a goal after the first period, the Marshall boys hockey team found a spark in the second frame to pick up a Big South Conference win over Windom on Tuesday. Jacob Allen scored the Tigers’ first and final goals of the day as Marshall surged past the Eagles for a 3-1 win.

“We started off pretty well, just couldn’t goals,” Allen said. “We knew we had them, we were playing well, and then we just came out, battled hard and got pucks into the net.”

Marshall outshot Windom 9-6 in the first period but still trailed 1-0 heading into the intermission. Momentum shifted fast in the second, however, as Allen received a feed from Nate Drown, deked his way through a pair of defenders and sniped the equalizer into the top left corner of the goal less than a minute into the second period.

The goal opened the floodgates for Marshall. The Tigers continued to control momentum throughout the period until Morgan Rokeh finished off an assist from Carson Kopitski for the go-ahead goal with five minutes left in the second period. The assist puts Kopitski into a tie with Brendan Price for the team-high in assists, with 10.

“We just kind of used that first period as a wake-up call and found that next level to get the play back,” Marshall head coach Michael Weiss said.

Allen added his second goal of the night five minutes later to give Marshall some insurance, with Tate Mellenthin getting credited with an assist on the goal. Allen leads Marshall with 12 goals and 20 points on the season.

Daniel Staples scored the game’s first goal for Windom three minutes into the game, changing direction just in front of the crease before backhanding the Eagles’ first shot of the game into the back of the net.

From there, Marshall didn’t let the Eagles get many more opportunities for the rest of the night. The Tigers outshot Windom 27-15 in the game, with goalie McCoy Guenther saving each of the 14 shots he faced for the rest of the night.

“We just needed to be a little bit more urgent on pucks,” Weiss said of the team’s first-period defense. “We were kind of taking a step back when we needed to be a little bit more aggressive and just prevent them from getting shots and getting good looks on McCoy.”

The game got chippy down the final stretch. Marshall and Windom were each assessed four penalties in the third period, with five of those penalties coming in the final five minutes.

Marshall improves to 5-13 on the season after snapping a three-game skid with Tuesday’s win. The victory also moves them into a tie with Fairmont for fifth place in the Big South standings with 8 points on the year (4-6-0 BSC).

“Coming down toward the end of the season, we’ve got playoffs soon so it’s good to get a win under our belt,” Allen said. “Hopefully we can take this momentum into our next game and just keep it going for the rest of the season.”

“We’ve just got to keep being more consistent,” Weiss said. “The things we’re doing well against some of those really good teams, we need to do consistently against every team and keep building every game.”

Marshall next goes on the road to take on Albert Lea on Saturday at 2 p.m.